Castleberry Hill couple respects history in loft conversion

When a loft conversion has been done well, it evokes a modern feel grounded in history and authenticity. Ian and Holli Hines Easton’s Castleberry Hill home does that, capturing the beauty in joining old with new.

In 1996, when Ian Easton, a partner with Canvas Systems, a Norcross-based I.T. company, bought the 2,800-square-foot condo, he gutted the place “down to the studs,” leaving just some of the original beams and flooring of what he says was an old Johnson & Johnson Band-Aid factory. Together with his stepfather, B.J. Sharp, a local builder who specializes in renovation, they designed the space, fitting it around an industrial staircase they designed. The project involved off-site manufacturing and a crane to deliver it, in sections, through a downstairs window.

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Sean Drakes/Special

Ian Easton and his stepfather crafted the loft around an industrial staircase they designed.

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Sean Drakes/Special

The Asian influence found in Holli Hines Easton and her husband’s lives can be seen in the room they call the ‘Zen den.’

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The home’s first level, which features the original flooring and exposed brick, houses a clean, white Bulthaup kitchen and several signature pieces throughout the great room that blend decorating periods and styles. For example, the sitting area includes a set of square Minotti sofas paired with recovered Louis XIV-style chairs that belonged to Easton’s grandmother. Above a custom-made oversized steel and travertine coffee table hangs a bronze chandelier by French designer Herve Van der Straeten that looks both hip and slightly medieval.

Topping a console are red lamps by Christopher Spitzmiller, whose clients have included President George W. Bush and Oprah Winfrey.

Surrounding the staircase are abstract works from local artists David Peterson, Woody Cornwell and Easton’s mother, Rosemary Sharp, a fourth-generation Atlantan.

The first threshold leads to an open sitting room, which the couple calls its “Zen den.”

A splash of fuchsia, orange and aqua adorn a low Roche-Bobois sofa, and a collection of pillows seem to make standing a lost cause. True to its nickname, this room carries an Asian influence — with its Indonesian bed frame hanging, for example — that’s found in the couple’s lives. They were married by a Shambhala high priestess, and the Sharps are Buddhist.

But this room also seems to be the home’s most casual quarters. Propped against the wall is a simple photo collage of friends and family members and special moments, such as a shot of Hines Easton running the Pikes Peak Marathon in Colorado (the 37-year-old has run 14). There are rows of brown and blue canvas magazine holders from West Elm and a drawing of a lion from Easton’s childhood home. The family had found the piece, dating to the 1800s, in the basement of their Brooklyn brownstone. “It’s got all the original energy to it,” says Hines Easton, vice president of ad agency Origen Partners, of her home.

Across the hall, the master suite fuses modern and worn elements with elegance. An acrylic-legged sofa by Philippe Starck is flanked by antique French side tables with gold leafing. These came from Belvedere, one of the Eastons’ local decorating haunt. A pastel rug that Easton’s great-grandmother had custom-made in France blankets the original wood floor.

An expected surprise is a rooftop terrace. It features a bar and hot tub and Japanese trees below a canopy of sails that provide shade. “They are function first and form second,” says Easton, 38, of the sail system. The same could be said for the entire home.

• Coolest feature: Windows cut from an interior bathroom onto the atrium to let in natural light.

But if you ask Easton, it’s the stairwell, which he calls “the spinal cord of the space.” It also connects the first floor to the skylight. Previously, the great room “felt very cavelike,” he says.

• Decorating style: “Eclectic, definitely,” Easton says.

• Future project: The couple is expecting and is in the midst of moving to make room for the baby. Easton says they’re working to “re-create a space equally as amazing in a single family house.”

• Tips for good living: In life and in decorating, Easton says: “Pick your battles.”

And which ones are worth picking?

“The ones I can win,” he says, with a chuckle.